“To her, not packing our lunches every day or joining the PTA is a feminist rallying cry.”

“Inside my chest, my lungs are wild animals, clawing at the cage."Oh, man," Autumn mumbles from beside me. "His smile makes me stupid."Her words are a dim echo of my own thoughts: His smile ruins me...”

“His voice is both low and quiet, and it has this hypnotic rhythm to it. I wonder whether someday he'll give sermons with that voice, whether he'll throw down judgement with that voice.”

“We're only three class sessions in and I'm already behind? And to hear it from him? This buttoned-up Bible-thumper I can't get out of my head?”

“High school is such an incestuous little pool.”

“Light bursts behind my closed eyes, so intensely I nearly hear the popping sound. It's my brain melting, or my world ending, or maybe we've just been hit by a meteor and this is the rapture and I'm...”

“Gabriel.' I'm so close to him our lips are almost touching, and then I move closer so our lips are touching as I say his name again. It's like a kiss but it's not really a kiss. And it's nice and I...”

“Anna's voice wasn't a beautiful voice - rough edged and sorrowful, a bit used, somehow male and female at once. Yet it had more vibrancy to it than most Danish voices, which were often thin and whi...”

“Every woman I have ever loved has left her print upon me, where I loved some invaluable piece of myself apart from me-so different that I had to stretch and grow in order to recognize her. And in t...”

“Lesson one: expect to get screwed over for the convenience of others on a regular basis.”

“All this bunch of so-called 'adults' was doing was making enemies of one another when what they really needed to be concentrating on was how to get out alive.”

“Now you're an adult, Katya!" he'd said, picking her up under the armpits like he'd been doing since she'd been born.”